Serpent's Skull

Down With the King

Of ape kings and squishy paladins...

10

NOV/13

Golarion date 28 Abadius 4711AR

There was much discussion about how to deal with Olujimi and his half-fiend gorilla. Where had this flying fiendish simian come from? Joque wanted to see if the statue of a winged gorilla was still on the pyramid in the military district. Mastuuk found a scroll of clairvoyance in the Pathfinder supplies and spent the day scribing it in his spell book. The plan was to use it to spy on the district and see if they could figure out where Olujimi was, if the statue was still on the pyramid and what was going on in the district.

Mastuuk and Zelshee dimension doored to the top of the toiwer of Olujimi’s keep to get close enough to use the clairvoyance spell in the vicinity of the pyramid. When they arrived they were sharing the roof with two chauru-ka, one of which had a signal horn!

Zelshee cut down the one with the horn, but not before he was able to get off a long blaring blast. Just as she picked up the horn, Olujimi and the 20 foot tall half-fiend gorilla teleported to the roof with them. Olujimi seemed surprised to see them, and Mastuuk dimension doored them out of there as quickly as possible. So much for the clairvoyance idea!

Back in the ruined building across the water, they quickly told the others what had happened. Joque looked out a ruined window towards the keep and saw the giant demonic ape flying this direction. In a fit of inspiration, Joque grabbed the horn from Zelshee and began blowing it loudly! The fiend immediately changed course and flew towards the sound.

They quickly prepared to do battle with the beast. The fiend flew over top of the roofless ruin and uttered a blasphemous word that weakened them all. Then it looked around and seemed to recognize Zelshee and pounced on the half-orc paladin, drawing on the power of the abyss to smite the champion of Iomedae! The beast and paladin exchanged massive blows as Olujimmi and an ancient female chauru-ka shaman teleported in blocking the doorway. Mastuuk panicked and teleported himself and Zelshee and Drasheen outside, Zelshee being badly injured by the focused attacks of the fiendish ape.

A holy smite spell from Drasheen slowed down Olujimmi and the shaman as he dispelled it’s effects. The shaman pulled out a scorpio which she threw to the floor and cast a spell to enlarge it to massive size. Teyla and Joque, left inside with the enemy fought hard, but a spell from the shaman paralyzed Teyla.

Olujimi stalked Zelshee and they did battle. However, Olujimi’s rage proved too much and Zelshee was cut down mortally wounded. The fiendish ape was killed inside, by a hound archon summoned by Mastuuk while Joque harried the shaman. Olujimi came back inside, intending on finishing off the paralyzed Teyla. Joque came to her rescue, but was nearly cut down by Olujimi in the process. Drasheen and Teyla squared off against the monkey king, and with the help of some spells from Mastuuk were barely able to bring him down. The shaman fled, casting a spell to allow her to walk on water, but was dropped a few feet from shore.

I am still a little weak from all the wounds I took but I have to write this down now. All of this hatred boiled up inside of me over these past few days because I saw every fat, foul-mouthed, overbearing bastard that ever demeaned me when I was a kid in the jowls of this Olujimmi prig. I may be completely wrong but in my mind’s eye I could see him using his own enormous size, and his ability to animate the statue of that demon ape thing, to grind peoples faces into the mud. To rape and torture and degrade every other living soul in sight just for his pleasure. Hell, the first thing he said to us was to get on our knees and worship him!

Now I know that the “people” he was doing this to are these chauru-ka creatures and, up to this point, our every encounter with them would lead a guy to suspect they might even like being treated like that but I have his stinking head in a bag now and I want them to see it. I want them to know the scumbag is dead! I want to see if they are different when they are free – free of a tyrant leader – free of a bully. (Hell! They might even turn out to be worth knowing if they can just keep from flying off the handle in a rage of some sort every five minutes.)

I am glad he is dead. There, for a little while, all of my anger and all of my bravado were replaced by fear. I almost broke and ran until I saw that bastard starting toward Teyla. For some reason I hadn’t noticed how still she was standing until that moment. Then it hit me that Olujimmi or his little witch shaman must have cast a spell on her. Suddenly, she looked like a little bug trapped in a web with a huge spider closing in on her, fangs dripping, and I just couldn’t let that be the last time I saw her. I went back inside and the next thing I knew the spider was taking a step back – a step right back into a set up where he was flanked by Drasheen of all people. She destracted him just enough and i buried that adamantine blade deep in his guts – not once but two or three times!!! Drasheen hit him too and he had already been wounded by her earlier in the fight. It was just enough. His vile blood gushing from him, he dropped to his knees and then fell forward on his blubbery face!

We are back in camp now and getting over the shock of the battle. Now is the time to put this head on a stick and go back to the plaza below the ziggeraut. Somebody here says that this is the “military district” of Savinth-Yhe. If they won’t accept us as liberators over there, maybe they will accept a change in command. Haaaarrr!!! Wouldn’t it be great to have an army of chauru-ka helping us hunt down that bitch Ieana and her snake people! (Got to find out where they got the ones that were hanging on those columns on the plaza.)

Deaths door again!
I am a shining beacon of Goodness, Righteousness and Justice! And because of that, the Evil ones seek me out.

We didn’t have a good plan. We really didn’t even have a plan. Dim Door onto the Keep, just Mastukk and I. Do some recon and then come up with something.
I knew the one and only thing I needed to do was to keep that damn chuaru-ka from blowing his horn. And I failed. Oh he died. Just not fast enough. I turned around and there stands Olujimi and the 20 foot tall half-fiend gorilla! So here’s a little secret no ones knows – Mastukk wanted me to grab Olijimi while he Dimension Door’ed us BOTH back to the rest of the party. He thought he was being brilliant — I thought he was being absolutely FOOLISH!! If he wanted Olijimi that badly, HE could grab him! He didn’t…..
The sound of Joque blowing that horn, haunts my waking hours! Knowing that evil was to soon follow the sound of it, made my knees (slightly) weak. But Joque’s stroke of genius, brought them both right to us. Sadly, Olijimi brought another minion. An old, decrypted evil shaman that helped waste our time trying to kill her.

The evil half-fiend gorilla zeroed in on me and proceeded to smite the Goodness and Light that I am. And I was unable to destroy it. It was much too powerful for me! Mastukk saved me again. He Dimed Door Drasheen and me out of the building so Drasheen could heal me and I could back inside to finish off the gorilla. Great plan! Didn’t work that way. I was mostly healed when Olijimi turned around and saw the 3 of us standing there. 4 arms, all with deadly accurate axes. A massive gaping jowl filled with razor sharp teeth. Didn’t take long before I was in need of more healing – but it didn’t come. I was ripped and cut in so many places. I don’t know how I am here today. There were pieces of me that I’m sure were separated from my body. No one has talked much of my condition when they finally found me after the battle. At least the battle ended with us as the victors! I want to just close my eyes and rest – but that brings deadly images to mind.
Am I too weak to continue this quest that Iomead has set me on? Will I fail my Goddess and bring shame on myself? Will Justice not be served because I am not worthy?
Or has She given me another chance to prove my mettle in serving her? To fix what is in need of repair so I can shine in glory while destroying evil for the holy cause of Justice! YES!!

Each and every day is more horrifing than the one before. Each time we end a day in near death, being beaten form head to toe, I think I will never be able to get the courage to try again. But each time we each individually seem to come up with a miraculous blow or outstanding plan just at the right time…I can hardly close my eyes for fear of what I will recall. Will I see Teyla paraslized and about to be killed when I thought I was all alone,Joque comes back to save the day. It was outstanding. Or will I see Zelshee, beaten and bloody. She must of taken enough blows that would killed 10 others but she kept on and on til she just couldn’t. No time for the rest of us to be sad we had carry on to save ourselves and get Zelshee to safety so she could be healed. Joque has Olujimmi’s head, he thinks we will be able to get his followers to follow us now. That gives me the creeps…I will have to pray and meditate on that one, for sure. Mastuuk was brilliant will all his spells and summoned creatures.

The king is dead, the king of the monkeys has been smitten. My sister has offered her life to her god yet again, an increasingly common event and one that upsets me to no end. There is no reason she has to go to such extreme ends to defeat evil. If evil escapes but you live to fight other days, isn’t that better than destroying a single being and snuffed out? I understand the intricacies of many powerful summoning spells but I will never understand her simple drive to destroy whatever evil is before her on a given day.
As for the others, they also performed quite well even when Teyla was out of the picture. We are becoming a well honed edge and it makes me a little prideful to know that I’ve turned this unlikely group into a powerful team.
Now I must go attend to my sister, she is about to return from her recovery trip to Jalmeray, it is a magical place.